Yay Pokken! Boo unnecessary Sun/Moon cash grabs! Yay Gold/Silver VC! Wait, not Soul/Heart and no Switch support? Boo!
To be fair Switch is still a baby, and they already have their first party, in-house developed heavy hitters taking over Switch's first year. Zelda to kick it off, Mario to finish 2017, Splatoon 2 in between, and basically low risk situations in MK8 and Pokken. To jump to a new new console mid generation is too risky, and for someone who doesn't have the Switch (more people have 3DS than Switch, that is such an obvious fact given the ages of both consoles), doing a huge Pokemon title for Switch would be risky and to me aggravating. I don't want to buy the console out of necessity (I have obligations as a genner to get the latest Pokemon main series titles, plus I want to), I want to buy it because I want to and have the money. Also, you think they would've had time to develop follow-ups to Sun/Moon on such a young console? They would need well over a year, and they have that between November 2017 and November 2018. Cost effective thing would be simply updating SM and ironing out any issues (at least I hope, with occasional lag).
And history shows Game Freak never jumped mid console, they would give Nintendo's newest console breathing room, time to grow. When Gen 3 was hitting Emerald Era, the DS came out, but they waited until 2006-2007 to get Gen 4 going. BW2, if I'm not mistaken came out during 3DS' infancy, give that console time to grow, 2013, XY comes out. This is really the same formula, and throwing fuel to the fire is New 2DS XL. They need new games to sell that console, Pokemon's the tried and true cash cow for Nintendo's handheld systems. In the future, would they ever do a main series game for Switch? I don't know, it's not for sure since there could always be a followup to the 3DS, a new Nintendo handheld, not necessarily yet another new 3DS model. If Nintendo was only Switch come say, late 2018, 2019, then Game Freak would push for Pokemon titles over there, they would have to anyways. My expectations were not set at a ludicrously high level, this Direct gave me what I expected, in a general sense. I expected DP remakes, but in the end, the broad thing still happened, main series games for the 3DS. The bigger shock was GS for VC. Even though hackers gave that out with wireless connectivity well over a year ago, the Bank capabilities gives way to RBY's mechanic of nature based on experience points/level, and more importantly for certain mons, guaranteed HAs. The two that benefit the most, Lugia and Ho-Oh, FINALLY not needing Dream Radar and what I hope is an easier RNG journey to get the right stuff on those two. I would say the legendary beasts, but GF nerfed their unreleased HAs by giving them all Inner Focus. Flash Fire Entei would've been badass.
All told I'm happy (moreso relieved) with the announcements.
